Felicity Huffman Has Arrived

Lesley Stahl Profiles The 'Desperate Housewives' Star

(CBS) 
But from the very first episode, Huffman’s character Lynette Scavo — with her painful authenticity — touched a nerve with desperate housewives around the country. Her character is at her wit's end dealing with bratty kids and a horny husband.

Lynette's defining moment came when she waded into the pool — at a memorial service, no less — to get the kids out.

"I think Lynette's experience of motherhood parallels my experience of motherhood," says Huffman.

In real life, she admits she is a harried mother.

"Oh, yeah, I'm out of control. I spent yesterday out of control. I spent last night out of control," she says.

Showing 60 Minutes around Wisteria Lane, she may have looked as sunny as her California sundress but the day before had been a long one on the set, followed by a restless night with two cranky kids.

"I have to talk to you today, and I'm gonna be stupid and tired," she says, laughing. "And look old!"

Talking about insecurity, Huffman says she doesn’t think she is beautiful. "I'm not sorta, going, you know, 'Poor me,' or being self-deprecating. I think my face is fine," she says. "I mean I like my face and it's done me well, so far, my face. But, you know, I'm not a beauty."

Of course, the bar's pretty high when you work an eyelash away from the likes of Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross, Eva Longoria and Nicollette Sheridan.

What does Huffman make of everybody assuming that the cast members are going to be in a cat fight all the time?

"You know, they've been saying we were gonna fight since before we started airing," Huffman says. "We'd always open up the rags and go, 'Oh, look, Teri, I’m not talking to you. And Eva's drunk.' "

Huffman denies there is tension among the cast.

"No. The days that we all shoot together are the funnest days on set. Um, I don't think funnest is a word, but if there were, I would use it," she says. "No, it’s a wonderful group. Everyone, most of us have been around the block a couple of times, so we’re very grateful. We’re professionals. We work hard."

On sisterhood, she's an expert. Felicity, "Flicka," as the family calls her, grew up in Woody Creek, Colo. She was the youngest of eight children. Seven sisters and a brother.

"By the time I came along my mom was so tired," Huffman says, laughing. "Eight children. I mean, I'm losing my mind with two."

Huffman says she was a happy child.

"I think I was loud and obnoxious, which is probably why my mother was like, 'I'm gonna send you to acting camp,' " she says, laughing.

She was barely out of acting camp when she got her first paying job on a TV after-school special. Flicka was 15.

Her real training came on the stage in New York, where she fell under the spell of playwright David Mamet. Today, she's still a key member of Mamet's Atlantic Theater Company.

It was here, 20 years ago, that she met the man she would eventually marry, actor William H. Macy.

"She was a dream girl. She was. I was swept away, literally," Macy says.

Macy knows a thing or two himself about how fame can take its own sweet time.

His breakthrough film was Fargo, which came out when Macy was 45. For 20 years before that, he had knocked around movies, TV and the New York stage, sometimes teaching acting classes to pay the bills.

"Our friend said, 'There's this girl who's gonna be in your class. You're gonna love her. Her name is Flicka Huffman,'" Macy says.

Huffman was his student.

What was Macy like as a teacher?

"He was insightful. Charming. Very empowering. He made you feel like you could do it," Huffman says.

They married eight years ago. At their wedding, Huffman was walked down the aisle by her mother. Her father had died.

"But you know, I wanted my mother to walk me down the aisle," Huffman says. "Um, she really raised me. They got divorced when I was about 1. And my father was a wonderful man, and my mother raised me."